judyonthenet » Reviews

Red Cliff: What happens when HK directors watch too many movies

Judy — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:44:00 +0000

Rodney and Jane came over to our place during the weekend for a movie night on our giant TV. I wanted to watch a movie that looked great in HD, and my friend Netflix recommended I check out Red Cliff. Never heard of the movie, but it was apparently a recent blockbuster in Asia about Three Kingdoms stuff. It also stars the hottest Asian guy ever (AKA Takeshi Kaneshiro), so hey, why not?

The red cliff in question

We watched the full, two-part Asian version. That’s almost 5 hours of epic Chinese movie… LOTR territory there. We started at 7:30ish, had a late dinner, and finished the film around 2:30AM. (Of course, Rodney passed out during the movie.) It looked very, very pretty on our TV. So if you want a film to test out your home theater system that’s not Planet Earth, this is a good one to try. Audio was great, too.

You have a lot of boats, I get it

The movie itself is entertaining enough. It’s the most expensive movie made in Asia to date, and it shows. Sometimes, it takes itself way too seriously and is inadvertently funny as a result. For a movie of this budget, it has a surprising amount of stupid in it. Also, the movie borrows a lot from other films; 300 in particular comes to mind (anything involving shields, extraneous sex scene), Saving Private Ryan, Star Wars (scene transitions, ha!)… It lives up to the main expectation of most viewers, which is lots and lots of epic battles. I love the heroes in the film, too. All their fight scenes are very well choreographed. It makes me want to go play Dynasty Warriors.

Fighting with baby a la Hard-Boiled. Go figure, it’s a John Woo film.

Here’s some more not-too-spoiler-iffic screens from the film. I already returned the Blu-rays, so I could only grab stuff from the theatrical US version, which is edited down to half the length, off Netflix streaming. From what I browsed, I can’t believe the stuff they cut. I can’t believe the stuff they left in even more!

The two leads. Notice the incessant sexual tension between the two.
Their Chinese harp battle is pretty steamy…

And as hot as Takeshi Kaneshiro is, does he really look like the greatest strategist that ever lived? He looks like a doofus.

Tony Leung flying through China in his mind. I can’t believe they kept
this in the theatrical US version. All four of us LOLed during this part.

Sun Shangxiang, the token girl. Surprisingly, she was one of the best characters
(she’s like Mulan!)… and they cut out all her scenes for the theatrical US version!
No acupressure or Shaolin soccer, WTF!

Sure, it looks cool… but it makes no f*cking sense!!

Here’s another Takeshi-Tony love gaze battle for good measure.

In summary, a worthy movie to test out your new HDTV with. I know Kelvin disagrees with me, but I recommend watching the full 5-hour version. Some of the most entertaining scenes are cut out (I mean, who wants to miss horse-birthing?!), and several crappy scenes are left in the shortened version anyway.

New thing I learned today: Chen Chang, who plays Lord Sun in the film, was the bandit guy in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

I knew he looked familiar! And the pirate guy in Red Cliff was in Letters of Iwo Jima and Fearless.

Professor Layton bobblehead nods (slightly) approvingly

Judy — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 03:23:54 +0000

Who doesn’t love Professor Layton, a man of intellect AND action? When it was announced that bobbleheads would be released in conjunction with the release of the Professor Layton film, I bookmarked the preorder page and eventually bought a Professor Layton bobblehead so he could nod at me at my desk.

Professor Layton the bobblehead comes in a nice, glossy box that’s printed like a building. There’s a picture of Professor Layton and Luke in one of the inside walls, and the figure itself is cased in large pieces of plastic. The figure also comes with a riddle card (the card is labelled ????… i have no idea what that means).

Using my ghetto Japanese skills and kanji dictionary, I think the card translates to something like:

How many are there?
In front of the kitten there’s one male cat, behind the female cat there’s two male cats.
Behind male cat there’s one male cat and one female cat.
Behind the kitten is one female cat.
Now, what’s the lowest number of cats that are here?

Professor Layton himself is well constructed and doesn’t have that “cheap” feeling. The plastic is sturdy with a matte finish. It’s mostly painted well, with the Layton’s simple smiling face flawless.

I’m not a fan of the spring used in the neck. It’s very stiff, and as a result, his head doesn’t shake very well and requires a bit of disturbance in order to move. He just doesn’t have the same bobble-ness as, say, the Fallout 3 Vault Boy bobblehead.

The base feels a lot cheaper than Professor Layton. I remember in promo pictures the figure wasn’t attached to a base, so I tugged on Professor Layton a little bit to see if he can come off. I got one foot up… leaving a glue shaped footprint behind and permanently detaching his left food from the base.

I wasn’t even pulling that hard! Anyway, just FYI, Professor Layton stays on the base.

I ordered the Professor Layton FuruFuru figure back in February from NCSX. When I first heard about the figure, it was supposed to be shipped in January, but it was delayed until the beginning of April for some reason. The Layton Revoltech figure that was scheduled for March came out on time, and I got it before getting the FuruFuru figure. (More on the Revoltech figure in a later post.) As a result, the FuruFuru figure was a bit underwhelming compared to the craziness of the Revoltech figure. I sort of wish I had gotten the Luke FuruFuru figure instead as now I have two Laytons and no Luke. (But gosh, Luke is so annoying.) This figure still makes a pretty nice desk decoration, regardless.

New thing I learned today: The Professor Layton movie, Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, takes place after the fourth Professor Layton game.

Five annoyances with Uncharted

Judy — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:11:54 +0000

I beat Uncharted last weekend (with Kelvin’s help… we did the trade-controller-on-death thing for whenever he felt like watching). Overall, an excellent game. Pretty graphics, great voice acting with well-developed (if completely cliched) characters. Gameplay was straightforward and very reminiscent of Tomb Raider, and the cutscenes were the right length and entertaining. While most of the game is good, it’s good enough that imperfections really stick out and can distract from the game. Here’s a few of the nitpicks I couldn’t quite get over:

1. Ridiculous jet ski segments – There are two vehicle sections where you use a jet ski with your buddy, and you control both the driving and the shooting at baddies on the shore with unlimited ammo. Driving and shooting at the same time BLOWS TURDS. Shooting and accelerating is on the same trigger side; that plus the left trigger aim and dual joystick moving confuses the hell out of my fingers.

You would also think the point of the a jet ski is to travel fast and zip through the water past your enemies, but NO! For some bizarre reason, there’s barrels of explosive stuff floating everywhere in the river, blocking your way. (Who the hell thinks to bring tons of explosives to an island in the middle of nowhere just to dump it in a river? Can’t they afford mines?) If you bump into them or an enemy shoots one near you, instant death. The first segment, you’re given a grenade launcher, and you can’t shoot and drive at the same time. So you have to stop every 5 seconds to shoot all the barrels in front of you. Time consuming, boring, and makes the jet ski totally useless. Why couldn’t I walk along the shore with this magical grenade launcher?

Damn litterbugs.

The second segment, you’re using a pistol that you can shoot and drive at the same time. It never needs reloading and has infinite ammo, so the entire section is just BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM. There’s some auto-aiming, so this requires no skill. Controls still suck, so often times you’re running into rocks. You also drive up small waterfalls, which makes no sense.

BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM

2. Nathan’s inability to open doors – Is it really necessary to kick open every door or gate you run into? Why can’t he be a touch bit more subtle in jungle full of people trying to kill him?

3. Arbitrary puzzles – The main character, Nate, spends half of his game time hanging from his hands. Sure, inhuman feats are characteristic of video game characters, but some the grip jumps he makes are distractingly absurd. It reminds me a lot of God of War, where Kratos was always opening heavy doors with his strength. I always wondered how anybody who wasn’t Hercules got anywhere in Ancient Greece. Same in Uncharted. How does anyone get anywhere without being some mutant monkey man?

Every puzzle involves Nate scaling walls to perilous heights, long-jumping between ledges, hanging on edges by one hand… just to get to whatever random object you push/pull/break/lick to unlock whatever random passage you need to unlock. Why is there a pulley to move a hanging chain (with nothing on it) 90 degrees? Who the hell puts levers by the roof to open doors that have no path to get to them? Who uses a giant cavern to make a room full of red herring puzzles that looks like an MC Escher drawing? Apparently, the 16th century Spanish.

4. A small nation’s worth of bad guys – I don’t see why the villain is looking for treasure when he has enough money to fund a huge multi-ethnic army. There are SO MANY goons. And they’re everywhere you go. The island is deserted and not very big; how did they get all these people on there? There’s no airport or harbors (that aren’t ancient and dilapidated, anyway). Maybe they all swam there?

Once I kill the 10 people in here, 6 more will ambush me from behind

I hate 3D platforming, but I’d rather do more exploring (everything is so pretty!) and arbitrary puzzles than waste time with endless goons. And a lot of time is wasted on fighting goons.

5. What’s the point? – You spend all this time decrypting Sir Francis Drake’s doodles, climb walls, open secret passage ways, jump across decaying platforms, only to end up in front of a dozen goons. Seriously, how did these assholes get here already when I had to use some old book buried in the middle of the ocean to figure out how to open some secret door that no one has ever opened before and risk death trapezing over bottomless abysses just to get to the same point? Did the villain find some 400-year-old shortcut book? Why doesn’t Nate just use his ninja skills and follow these henchmen around? He’s obviously better at incessant murder than getting to anyplace before other people.

For example, in the last image, once you clear the area, 6 guys will ambush you from where you entered. However, you had to jump across rotting wooden planks on the side of a building in order to get to that entrance. Yet they somehow manage to efficiently get to the same spot and flank you. Stupid.

What’s even more retarded is that with half of these silly puzzles, you just end up where you started. You solve these ancient mysteries to basically go in a ginormous circle. At multiple points in the game, I looked above or below me and was like, “I was just up/down there an hour ago, wtf.”

—–

Outside of these points, I enjoyed the game and would easily recommend it. I’ve already started the second one, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m going to assume it will go well, as the game is winning all sorts of awards right now.

Also, apologies for the horrible screen shots. It’s literally just me holding a point & shoot camera at the TV while also trying to use the PS3 controller (so, basically a big blurry mess). If someone can recommend a good setup for getting good screenshots from my 360 or PS3 (both are using HDMI right now), let me know. Maybe I’ll implement it if I can ever find a source of monies again.

New thing I learned today: Simon Templeman voiced Kain in the Legacy of Kain series.

I haven’t played the Legacy of Kain series, but when I heard the villain in Uncharted, I was thinking, “Isn’t that Loghain?” And indeed it was! All voiced by Simon Templeman. After hearing Alistair and Morrigan again in the beginning of Uncharted 2 (their voice actors apparently play Nathan’s adventuring cohorts for the second game), I’m somewhat itching to play Dragon Age again.

I have watched the Watchmen

Judy — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:43:11 +0000

Last week, I used up my freebie Watchmen tickets with Ted, since Kelvin saw the movie on opening day with his coworkers. It was kind of nice to watch it over a week after opening day on a weeknight. Space in the theater was plentiful, and only a handful of people meant we probably weren’t going to have annoying people with us, which was the case (thank goodness). We both chowed down on super nachos and giant Icees, so the theater basically made its ticket money off us anyway.

The movie was pretty decent. I read the graphic novel before (if you haven’t come borrow my copy!), and I felt the movie was good truncation of the graphic novel. There’s no way they could have put all the stuff from the book into a movie, and they picked and chose their scenes well. I also approve of most of the changes they decided to do. The ending, in particular, was probably a lot more palatable for general audiences than the book ending, yet the movie ending still made the same point as the book. I liked most of the casting, with the exception of Adrian Veidt; I don’t get what his inconsistent accent was supposed be. I am SO glad they didn’t mess up casting for Rorschach. Rorschach was the best character in the book, and he was definitely the best character in the movie. Jackie Earle Haley rocked the role. Like 300, the movie is visually spectacular.

It’s not perfect tho. Laurie’s character is underdeveloped compared to the graphic novel, so when her personal conflicts come to a turning point, it’s not particularly compelling. Dr. Manhattan’s CG weirded me out, but maybe that’s intentional. Veidt’s cat definitely didn’t look right. The movie was more graphic than the book, both in violence and sex. And speaking of sex, WHAT A TERRIBLE SEX SCENE. Unnecessarily long, awkward, and what the f*ck was with the background music?

Is this song better porn music or intimate love scene music? The answer is: IT SUCKS EQUALLY FOR BOTH. I don’t know what emotions Zack Snyder is trying to convey. Passion? Love? Sadness? They’re going at it like horny rabbits with this somber music in the background. IT MAKES NO SENSE. The sex scene was also my biggest beef in 300, so I’m guessing “crappy sex scene” is a Zack Snyder signature. Kelvin suspects that he’s watched too many Showtime softcore pornos.

Anyway, I still feel the book is better, just because it goes into things in so much detail. The movie was a good summary of the book, with some changes that I preferred over what was in the book. I give it an 8 outta 10.

New thing I learned today: Those inkblot tests are called Rorschach tests. (Okay, I didn’t learn this today; I learned about it when I read the book, but whatever.) The Rorschach test uses a set of 10 inkblot images, always the same 10 images and always in the same order.

My mom’s got a gown for the wedding

Judy — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 06:55:03 +0000

Before I started shopping for gowns with my mother a couple weeks ago, I had the impression that finding a dress for my mom would be fairly straightforward. I had dropped in the formal wear store of Trudy’s last I was at the Pruneyard, and they seemed to have a large selection of off-the-rack dresses. I couldn’t have known then that I’d end up going to NINE different stores in search of a decent dress for my mother!

The first store we went to was Trudy’s. It’s the place where I found my wedding dress… but not the place where we bought it because of their pricing. They’re generally expensive with little chance of discount. Despite this, they were having a sample sale, and their selection of mother-of-the-bride (MOB) dresses was extensive, particularly for a size 8 mother. (I think the average mother is more plus sized, so finding samples my mother’s size was difficult at times.) As expected, their service was great; the attendant (Judy) pretty much found the perfect dress on the first shot, a purple Montage by Mon Cheri dress with coat and in decent condition:

MOB dresses tend to retail for about $500 for styles with coats (our original budget of $200 was apparently… difficult), and shipping times range from 2-3 months (not gonna make it for the wedding). This one was $299 because it was a sample (the dress customers try on to see if they want to order it) of a discontinued style, and off-the-rack the only alterations my mom needed was shortening the hem and strap. We tried a ton of other dresses, but we were all in agreement that this purple one was the best. We were at the register, and my mom even had her credit card out. At the very last second, I stopped her, as I just realized that the dress is almost the exact same color as my qipao. My mother and I both agreed that having both of us wear almost the exact same color of similar fabric would be weird, so we had to pass on the dress. It was almost so easy; I was pissed at myself for not going with my original plan of a traditional red qipao. *sigh*

That same day, we also went to Elegant Lace and Bay Area Bridal. Elegant Lace had good service and an okay selection, but in terms of samples, they were pretty beat up and mostly not my mother’s size. We were a couple dresses we liked that we’d have to order and pay retail, which is hella pricey. Plus the brand of dress we liked (Montage by Mon Cheri) had very few options in darker tones. My mom was hoping for a red or burgundy kind of color, but most of the color options were light colors. Dark colors were always black or purple. Apparently, red is some sort of taboo color for moms in American weddings. Bay Area Bridal didn’t have as many nice dresses, and their service was nonexistent.

One of the few red dresses at Elegant Lace

Later in the week, we went to Valley Fair to check out the department stores. The good thing about going to department stores is that dresses are cheaper ($200 to $300 retail) and you can return the dress if you change your mind (no returns allowed at bridal shops), but the selection is a lot less with very little color options. We found a decent coated dress by Patra at Nordstrom’s:

I liked the dress but was iffy about the color. I felt my mother looked better in the darker colors, and the color of this dress kinda reminded me of underwear. But we both felt it was pretty and considered it a viable option, especially at under $200. Other dresses we checked out weren’t that great, and Macy’s didn’t have any of interest for us.

The next weekend, I made a last ditch effort to find the right dress. If we didn’t find the right dress today, we’d buy that purple one at Trudy’s and just deal with the daughter-mother-matchy-matchy stuff. At the suggestion of my day-of coordinator, we went to the Great Mall. We went to Group USA, which has affordable bridal and formal wear. Nothing there were worked for my mother. We went to Neiman Marcus Last Call, which had nothing even worth trying on because of little selection. The last store with went to was Uni, a Chinese store that sells qipaos and cheaper formal wear. It’s run by a Taiwanese lady and strongly reminds me of clothing shops in Taiwan. Despite the cheaper quality, it was still pretty pricey, plus there wasn’t anything we particularly liked. So Great Mall was a total failure.

Right after, we went to David’s Bridal, tried some more dresses, but they were kinda frumpy looking. There was another non-plus-sized MOB trying on dresses, and I think her daughter and I kept looking at each other’s moms to try and figure out what to get them to try on. David’s Bridal’s MOB dresses are kinda more prom looking, and unfortunately we didn’t particularly like anything here either. Ugh. We gave up. Back to Trudy’s for the purple dress.

A dress at David’s Bridal

At Trudy’s, the purple dress we liked thankfully hadn’t been sold yet, but a second look at it reminded both my mother and me of how similar it was to my qipao. We told our dilemma to the Trudy’s saleslady (it wasn’t Judy this time… I didn’t get this woman’s name), which was that we couldn’t find a decent, dark colored gown that didn’t require ordering and wasn’t purple. We figured we’d try on more dresses while we there, so the saleslady looked briefly and immediately found another gown worth trying. It didn’t have a coat, and it was also purple… but it was a much darker, bluer purple. You could easily tell it was a different color from my qipao, and the color would allow the dresses to coordinate nicely together. My mom tried it on, and it was perfect. Flattering, NO alterations needed. It was $215 retail (no discount for this one) and a Patra dress, and the sample was fairly new so it was in great condition. Once again, Trudy’s got it on the first try. We purchased it immediately. While no returns are allowed, they do allow exchanges for store credit for, like, a week or something, so it’s not like you have zero options. Judy (the saleslady we had the first visit) was behind the counter and was thrilled the dress was sold. She had told a deliberating customer earlier that Saturday that, if they don’t buy it that day, it’d be gone by Monday. She was glad my mom’s purchase made her not a liar. Sucks for the other mom, but there is another wonderful size-8 purple gown in the racks…

Anyway, here’s THE DRESS for my mom:

From the side:

I’m stoked. I think my mom looks fab, and the color (which is definitely different than my qipao… we compared the dresses next to each other!) and style is very flattering. I can’t believe she doesn’t even have to think about alterations. Amazing. I just have to find a matching chiffon scarf (need to go to the fabric store), and then we’re set. I definitely recommend Trudy’s for mommy dresses.

New thing I learned today: Aubergine is a synonym for “eggplant“.

The color name for the first dress we tried at Trudy’s was called “fresh aubergine”. The same brand also had dresses in “eggplant” that were similar in color, but slightly darker.

The best part about wedding planning: CAKE TASTING! (pt.3)

Judy — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:19:21 +0000

Finally, the last of my trilogy of trilogies of cake tastings. This time around, we looked at bakeries that were supposed to be more reasonably priced, at least according to Yelp reviews.

Bakery 7 – Jen’s Cakes
I called Jen’s Cakes after reading positive reviews on their cakes and pricing on Yelp. I called their number and spoke with Jen, who got my basic wedding information and said I’d get a call back later from Anthony (her husband) on scheduling a cake tasting. He did call back, and I arranged for us plus my mom to check out their cakes at their home the next Saturday afternoon, as they were in the progress of moving their bakery from Los Gatos to Willow Glen.

At their home, we were greeted by Anthony. Anthony organizes all the cake tastings, as well as helps deliver cakes, so he’s probably the person you’ll meet if you taste with them. He’s very laid back and chill, constantly joking and a bit sarcastic. Might be kind of weird if you don’t get his humor, but it’s easy to shrug off, which is what my doesn’t-speak-much-English mother did the entire time. Regardless, his casual demeanor makes him pretty easy to talk to and, I imagine, negotiate and work with.

He led us to their dining room table, where we checked out the albums of their past works. The albums are well organized, with each picture listing frosting and decoration types plus a reference name. Their cakes also looked lovely, with minimal, if any, complaints from Kelvin about lumpiness. Anthony talked to us, trying to get a basic idea how we wanted our cake to look. We still weren’t sure at this point, but we did point out a cake we liked (one with a clean and simple design) and he wrote it down as reference. I asked about fondant flowers and ribbons and other decorations, and he’d give me an estimated cost for those things. He didn’t want to give cake price until the very end, when we decided favorite flavors and general decoration choices.

Once we were done looking at the albums and talking about the look of the cake, it was time to check out the actual cakes. Anthony said it was good that we mentioned I was bringing my mom so he could prepare for her her own serving. He brought out two nicely laid out plates, one for Kelvin and me and a second plate for my mom, along with glasses of water and menu map sheets. Samples were cut into small pieces for each person, but the samples were still a good mouthful, so plenty to get a gist of the flavors. The cake map listed each sample’s flavors by position, and since my mom had a different plate layout, it was nice that she got her own map. They were print outs, so you could write notes on them and take them home for reference. We were also given a list of all the different flavors they offer.

After trying their cakes, I think their cakes are a bit on the sweeter side for me. They also varied in texture (one was pretty dry, while another was easily fell apart from moisture). The first half were decent; we liked two samples which happened to be the exact same two samples my mother liked. One of them had non-dairy whip cream filling, which was the first I ever had it, and it was pretty good. The last half of the samples was gross because of the flavors they chose (TWO coconut cakes, banana, and lemon), and I’m surprised they’d put all these unpopular flavors on their sampling plate at the end. Kinda gives it a bad finish, even tho their cakes overall were not bad. Jen’s Cakes was another bakery where we were alone as we sampled, so it was nice to freely discuss. (Kelvin said I was being rude and speaking a lot of Chinese explaining stuff to my Mom at this tasting, and I didn’t realize I was. I’ll have to work on that.)

Anthony came back after the tasting to discuss flavors and cake preferences. I asked when the cakes were made, and Anthony told us our samples had been frozen, but he emphasized that they never freeze the cakes they deliver. (I wouldn’t have thought they were frozen, but my mom claimed she could tell. Whatever.) We told Anthony our favorite flavors, and he left us alone for a few minutes to figure out the quote. He came back with numbers for buttercream and fondant options that included the simple decorations (I think dots and thin ribbons) based on the one cake style we liked best, delivery and setup, and “love”. The price was very reasonable considering it included delivery (Anthony: “And don’t forget love!”). My only beef with the numbers is that fondant is $2 more per person more when standard so far had been $1 more. No difference to us, because their cakes looked smooth enough for the buttercream option. Giving us a copy of our quote, we finished our tasting and were on our way.

Jen’s Cakes followed up through mail (a nice thank you card) and phone call about a week later to check up on our cake search. I don’t think we’re going to go with them since their cakes are sweeter for our tastes (though now that I think about it, they didn’t have many mousse fillings in their tasting… maybe that’s why), though their prices and service definitely make them worth looking at as an option.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): A
Presentation (based off photos): A-
Taste: B
Favorite flavors: Bailey’s Irish Cream cake w/Bailey’s flavored custard, German chocolate cake w/ non-dairy whip
Price: They quote they gave us included delivery, so if you get rid of $50 for shipping, slices start at $5.75 before any negotiation, which they seemed open to.

Bakery 8 – Sugar Butter Flour
A long time ago, Kelvin’s sister-in-law got us a cake from Sugar Butter Flour in Sunnyvale for our engagement party. It was the first time I had red velvet cake, and it was nicely dense without being too sweet. I was bummed that I forgot to ask for some of the leftover cake at the time, as I wanted for me. Lucky for me, Sugar Butter Flour opened a storefront in the Pruneyard a few months later, and whenever I’m in the shopping center, I make sure to grab a red velvet cupcake. I get the impression that their cakes, aside from the red velvet, would be too heavy for me. Since they were so close, I figured I’d give them a shot anyway, much to Kelvin’s anti-sweetness disgust. I made an appointment with them on another Saturday afternoon over the phone.

I haven’t been to their Sunnyvale location, but the Campbell store is very small as it used to be a Mrs. Fields shop. We met with a young woman named Alisha (I think), who sat us down at one of the cafe tables. The other employee was out doing the cash run, so she was working with us as well as manning the counter, but luckily it was slow at the moment. She gave us a sheet with their cake flavors and general pricing, which I used for notes. Their cake prices were more expensive than I expected, but just about every decoration (aside from massive amounts of fondant flowers or super complicated designs) was covered in the price. In fact, there was no difference in price for buttercream or fondant, so you can look at that as a deal for fondant or a rip-off for buttercream. There were no albums to look at, but a touch screen monitor by the counter had an electronic album of their work. I had already seen them online, so I opted out of looking at it.

When it was time to sample, Alisha came out with water and a plate with four large samples to try. She then left us to try the cakes alone and go back to working at the counter. The cakes were majorly sweet. One of the slices was red velvet, which I was excited about, but the cream cheese filling seemed sweeter than what I was used to. Cream cheese filling is supposed to be pretty sweet, but the cupcakes’ frosting had been sweet without being excessive or gross. It was as good as it usually was. The other samples were even sweeter, but my main issue was the texture. They seemed dry and not very soft. When Alisha came back, I asked when the samples were made, and she said she didn’t know since they were from the Sunnyvale store. So who knows what the status of those cakes were, especially after travel.

We were pretty much done after the tasting since we weren’t that interested in the cakes. After asking a few more typical questions, Alisha was nice enough to box up the leftovers up for us to take home. One thing that’s nice about their wedding cakes is that, in order to discourage the whole save-the-top-tier-freeze-it-and-eat-it-a-year-later thing, they offer a free anniversary tier a year from the wedding. Other bakeries have discouraged this tradition as well, but I don’t think anyone else offered a free anniversary cake. Maybe I should have asked… Anyway, I told all the bakeries I went to I’d be saving the top tier for standard sizing ( (Tip: Ask about the dimensions of the cake. A cake for 100 people at one bakery may be a different size than a 100-people cake at another bakery.), but I doubt I’d freeze a cake for a year and eat it.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): B
Presentation (based off photos): C+, their buttercream ones don’t look smooth at all
Taste: C-
Favorite flavors: Red velvet
Price: Start at $7.50 a slice, $40 delivery to Cupertino

Bakery 9 – Cakes by Ana
Our final cake tasting destination, Cakes by Ana, was another highly recommended Yelp business for flavor and price. All I ever got was an answering machine when I called them, but I was able to contact them through email and arrange an appointment on a Tuesday evening after work. They only let you try two flavors of cake, but the flavors can be anything out of their cake offerings. They let you try multiple fillings, which are served on the side. We chose chocolate and guava, as I was curious how their guava compares to Aki’s famous guava cake.

Their bakery is kind of in the middle of nowhere in a warehouse-y area in north San Jose. The front door was locked, but upon knocking, we were greeted by the friendly Annette, daughter of the baker (I’m guessing Ana). She led us to her office, where we sat at a table that had cake albums on top. We went over the albums with Ana, asking about how much various decorations cost. There wasn’t a quote sheet or cake menu for information or to write on, so I had to ask Annette about everything and write it down myself. They have a pamphlet, but we didn’t get it until the end. Most of the simple decorations (cake shapes, bands, dots) are covered, and they also have access to fresh flowers at whole sale price. Though their website and pamphlet advertise cakes starting at $2.90 a slice, we were told cakes start at $3.95 (fondant at $5.60), with price going up with complexity of cake. Still inexpensive when compared to other bakeries. Things like fresh fruit fillings also cost extra, but the cost would be like a couple bucks for the entire cake, so I wouldn’t really consider it an extra cost. Specialty cake flavors also cost extra; for example, having guava cost $30 extra for the entire cake. Looking at their cakes, presentation with non-fondant icing wasn’t very smooth, so we’d probably have to go fondant with them.

The cake tasting is done pretty uniquely here. To taste the two flavors you chose, they make mini-cakes of those flavors from cakes made that day (leftover cake or batter for orders, I’m guessing). A little piece is sampled from the mini-cakes, and the rest is to be taken home to share with others. Cakes are covered in non-dairy whip, which is what they use for most of their cakes in place of buttercream, and little cups of mousses and fillings are sided with the cake. They said they prefer to use non-dairy whip because it’s lighter than buttercream and better for the lactose-intolerant folks. (I’m guessing this bakery is probably popular with the Asians.) I’m not sure I’m a fan of the non-dairy whip. It is indeed very light and its texture is fluffy, but there’s something not quite right about it. After it sits in your mouth a bit, the texture sort of reminds me of something made from powder. I didn’t notice it in Jen’s Cakes’ samples, but Ana’s uses a lot more non-dairy whip than they did. Aside from the slightly off-ness of it, non-dairy whip isn’t bad at all. I really liked the chocolate cake, not too sweet but still moist. Annette bragged that their guava cake is better than Aki’s, as it used more guava in the batter and mousse. I could taste it had more guava, but I don’t know if I’d say it’s better than Aki’s. The cake had a gritty, dense texture, reminiscent of cornbread, probably from the guava puree. It tasted just okay, but I did like the extra guava-ness of the mousse. The chocolate mousse we had wasn’t bad either. We were also sampled a raspberry preserve (tastes like… jam) and fresh strawberries, the latter being tart if not mixed with a mousse.

After the tasting, there wasn’t much more to ask for aside for a sample contract. Annette said she’d email us a contract/sample quote the next day. She packed the leftovers for us and stuck a brochure with it. (Unfortunately, I didn’t drop by my mom’s place that week, so I had to eat all the samples myself. Poor me.) We didn’t get a contract in our email until a few days later, but it had a lot of the relevant contract information I had asked about previously. Cakes by Ana’s was one of the bakeries with lighter cakes, so while it’s nice to take mini-cakes home, I wish we could have tried more flavors. Based on price and quality, I imagine they’re a decent option for folks on a tight budget.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): B-
Presentation (based off photos): B-
Taste: B+
Favorite flavors: Chocolate cake with chocolate mousse.
Price: Starts at $3.95 a slice, $30 delivery to Cupertino.

New thing I learned today: Hummingbird cake, like red velvet, is cake flavor originating from the South. It’s basically a banana cake with pineapple and pecans.

We tried hummingbird cake at Sugar Butter Flour, and Kelvin predictably didn’t like it.

The best part about wedding planning: CAKE TASTING! (pt.2)

Judy — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:24:07 +0000

The next three bakeries we tried were fairly close to Cupertino, with a couple in downtown Los Gatos and one literally down the street from our reception venue. For the reviews, I decided to take off the portions rating from the bakeries. It seemed unfair, since I was rating more as better, when it doesn’t really matter as long as you get an idea of what their cakes are like. Plus more isn’t always better, especially if you don’t like the cake. I always feel bad leaving leftovers, but believe it or not, sometimes you can only take so much cake… especially if you’ve just had lunch and your fiancÃ© doesn’t like sweets.

Also, in case you’re curious about Kelvin’s point of view, so far he says all my grades are too high :P

Bakery 4 – Icing on the Cake
Icing on the Cake is another Yelp favorite. Located on a downtown Los Gatos corner close to 17, Icing on the Cake also sells ready made individual desserts and dessert cakes at their counter. Like their website says, they hold cake tastings every 1st and 3rd Saturdays on a first-come-first-serve basis. Kelvin and I dropped by on a Saturday afternoon to check out their cakes.

They were pretty busy when we arrived, even with several salesladies working behind the display of cakes. There are counters to the side, and I noticed a couple looking over wedding binders with one of the sales girls. I waited for them to be done, but it looks like they weren’t going to be anytime soon, so instead I bugged a random lady (totally forgot her name) behind the counter. Once she knew I was here for cake tasting, she immediately came over to the side to start our consultation, so I guess you just ask any sales rep to help you out with cake tasting.

A couple already doing their cake consultation

At the counter, she started taking notes on the quote sheet, asking us the typical questions (date, location, # of people, etc.). The bottom of the quote sheet has all the cake and filling flavors, which she went over with us. She asked us to put number next to combinations of cake, filling, and frosting we wanted to try. For example, if we wanted to try chocolate cake with mocha buttercream, we’d put a “1″ next to both “chocolate cake” and “mocha buttercream”. Then if we wanted to try white cake with chocolate fudge, we’d put a “2″ next to “classic white” and “chocolate fudge”. We picked five combinations, which were mostly white or chocolate cakes with various fillings, all with white butter cream frosting. She then ran off to the back to make the combinations we selected, while we looked at binders of their past works. I think this is an excellent cake tasting methodology; you basically build your own cake sample.

We checked out their binders, and I wasn’t particularly impressed. They only do buttercream cakes, so no super fancy designs that require fondant. We’re kinda iffy on fondant anyway, but their buttercream cakes didn’t look particularly great either. While it’s hard to get buttercream to be completely smooth, their buttercream cakes weren’t as smooth as other bakeries we’ve seen, and Kelvin particularly disliked that since he’s majorly bothered by uneven surfaces. They also don’t do shapes of cake other than round. So if you’re looking for a super fancy or very individualized cake, this probably isn’t the place to get it. However, whatever simple designs they do do, it’ll be covered in the cake cost.

The saleslady came back out with the samples, explained each sample, and left us to try them on our own, which I appreciate. It’s less anxious to try cake without someone from the bakery watching you. Another thing I appreciated was that she came back and gave us water as we were trying cake. And we really needed the water, cuz their cakes are really sweet. REALLY sweet. It’s the kind of cakes I always thought were popular in America, with the sugary frosting and stuff. Once I started regularly buying cakes from local bakeries that were pretty light, I thought maybe it was a misconception I had. But after reading the 150+ raves of the place on Yelp, maybe I was right after all. The cakes seemed pretty fresh, as the cake was fluffy, but Kelvin still felt the cake was “gritty” (whatever that means) and didn’t like the texture. I don’t remember the cake flavor, as I felt it was overwhelmed by the fillings and frosting. Kelvin hate sweets cuz “they make my teeth hurt”, and he said these samples were making his teeth hurt. We didn’t try what she said were their two most popular flavors (banana and apple spice) since Kelvin would never like them, but I wonder if they were any better at calming down the sugary taste.

Once we finished, she went over prices with us. She gave us numbers for a 90-person cake and 110-person cake (they really count every square inch on that cake, I guess) for our 100 person reception on the quote sheet, which we got to keep for our own reference. She told us we were welcome to come back again to either do more cake tasting or move on to the next step. The lady overall was good about questions and service, and I really like how they organize their cake tastings. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stand their super sweet cakes, so this place definitely will not be an option for us. Before actually trying any cake, I had contemplated getting a dessert cake for Anna’s b-day or getting Kelvin a delicious-looking mint chip cupcake, but I obviously changed my mind after the cake tasting. Clearly, this place lives up to its name of “Icing on the Cake”.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): A
Presentation (based off photos): C
Taste: C- (I feel like giving something lower would mean they “don’t pass” as a bakery :P )
Favorite flavors: None.
Price: Starts at ~$7.40 a slice for 110 people, but it was more like $7.60 for 90 people, so maybe it varies with size. Delivery fee to Cupertino is $80.

Bakery 5 – La Patisserie
Unlike the previous bakeries, we have had cake from La Patisserie before… several times actually. Sandra recommended this bakery to me a while back, and we haven’t stopped going since. I was expecting good cake based on our past experiences, but who knows how their cake samples would be. La Patisserie was the first place I called for a cake tasting, tho they couldn’t schedule me on a weekend until a couple weeks later. My mother joined Kelvin and me for our cake tasting appointment with Mojgan (I’m still not sure how to pronounce this; I kept thinking her name was Marjan from how she was pronouncing it) on a nice Sunday afternoon.

We sat at regular cafe seating, and after she got our basic information, the first thing we were presented with was three binders of cake pictures. She gave us prices upfront ($5.75 a slice for buttercream, and $6.75 a slice for fondant), and I was taken aback since I wasn’t expecting their prices to be so reasonable. Looking at their binders, their cakes had pretty decent presentation, as most were very clean and smooth. Mojgan was present for much of our album browsing time, so she’d give us descriptions of some of the cakes we were looking at. I was really surprised at some of the buttercream cakes they had pictures of; I would have sworn they were fondant from their smoothness. Similar to previous cake tastings, I pointed to several decorations and asked for cost, and most of the time, she’d say it’s included in the cost. Fondant ribbons? Scrolling? Beading? Square cakes? All covered. The only thing I remember that she said cost extra was a giant fondant ribbon decoration (you can see a couple examples of it on the website) and fondant flowers. Even though she told me fondant flowers cost extra, she said pointed out that the sakura flowers we saw in a couple pictures were covered in the cake price. I asked if they could imitate any cake I wanted, she said they could and to send any pictures of cakes I like, but she kept it real by saying, “Don’t bring us a picture of a castle, because we’re not going to do that.”

Then to the tasting. Mojgan brought out a plate with four circular samples, and it was even accented with a little bit of chocolate frosting. Along with the nice presentation, La Patisserie was also the second bakery to let us taste their fondant. Extra bonus points awarded for letting us try 3 kinds of waxy frosting: regular fondant, chocolate, and white chocolate. Despite the three different flavors, they all tasted like gross sugar wax, and we didn’t eat much of them. The fourth sample without any fondant instead had a buttercream flower. It’s nice how we could taste the various cake decorations. The samples had a larger ratio of mousse filling to cake, and Mojgan explained to us this was to make sure we could taste the filling. In the actual wedding cake, there’d be more cake. She left us alone to try the samples. All their samples we tasted were yummy, just like the dessert cakes we’ve had from them before. Everything had the right amount of sweetness, but still rich and creamy with obvious flavors. Kelvin even liked some of the fruit flavors, and he generally hates fruity stuff. This was the first time my mother had their cakes, and she also liked the samples. We scarfed everything up, with exception of the fondant pieces.

Mojgan came back again for some final questions. There wasn’t a sample contract for us to take home; the quote sheet didn’t have any information on it aside from whatever she wrote down. However, we asked her about all the usual deposits and fees, and she wrote every detail on the back of the quote sheet for our reference. We found out that, for some reason, La Patisserie has the most expensive delivery fee, even though they’re only 1.5 miles down the street from our reception venue! Like 3 times more than average! It sort of put a damper on the reasonable cake price, so I’m hoping we can negotiate this down. They also have a $250 deposit for using their cake stand that is refunded when the stand is returned. I’m not sure if we have to use it… I sure hope not. There was a cake flavors menu in one of the binders that would have been nice to take home, as their website only has pre-made dessert cakes listed. However, she said I could email her for it, and I eventually did do that and got a copy through email. So not much in terms of documents to take home with you, but the cake tasting itself was A+ in our book. Even with the ridiculous delivery fee, the overall price is still comparable to other bakeries. La Patisserie would be the obvious frontrunner at this point if it weren’t for the delivery fee. I hope they can do something about that… I know Kelvin is pretty convinced to book here regardless.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): B
Presentation (based off photos): A-
Taste: A
Favorite flavors: I liked all of them. Kelvin definitely liked the chocolate cake with chocolate mousse best, as he ate most of that sample.
Price: Starts at $5.75 a slice. Delivery fee to Cupertino is $150 (OMGWTFBBQ).

Bakery 6 – Fleur de Cocoa
I accidentally scheduled my Fleur de Cocoa appointment right after the La Patisserie one because I thought La Patisserie was the next Sunday. Thankfully, I didn’t schedule the same time, and La Patisserie didn’t take very long, so there wasn’t any rush. I contacted Nicola of Fleur de Cocoa through email to arrange the appointment. I also had to select the cakes I wanted to try beforehand. They only have four samples for you to try, and you can only try two of them for free. (Extra samples are $5.65.)

We arrived at Fleur de Cocoa a few minutes early, and the place was freaking packed. (In fact, I even ran into an old high school classmate.) The storefront sells individual desserts, cafe beverages, and a few lunch items. Apparently, business is good. I was eventually able to let somebody behind the counter know I was here for a cake tasting, and Nicola came over and greeted me. She asked if I was the 2:30PM appointment (I was the 3PM), and she seemed disappointed I wasn’t them, as that means she got a no-show. She handed me a giant album to look at pictures of their cakes, but there was no place to sit down because they were so busy. In fact, there wasn’t any place to stand without blocking somebody from something. Eventually, table cleared towards the back, and we rushed over to claim it.

It was a lot easier to look at the album sitting down, and their cakes were very nice looking. Nicola came over to talk to us, though we weren’t presented with any information sheets. She had a quote sheet for herself to write down our basic information, but nothing for us to take home. Instead, she grabbed a cafe menu to write all the main contract details like deposits and prices. Going through the binder and asking about the costs of design details, I didn’t really get a good idea of how much things cost. I felt a lot of the answers to my questions were vague; I think she prefers to know a final design before throwing out numbers for design elements, especially since she doesn’t make the cakes (her husband does). The cake per slice was the priciest so far, so if we got a cake here, any additional cost for design wouldn’t be an option anyway.

The cake tasting comprises of two individual desserts from their counters, hence the $5.65 additional cost for tastings outside of the two given samples. We chose their signature Satin cake and their Fleur de Vanille. Both were very… mousse-y. Their wedding flyer states their cakes are heavily mousse based, but I expected a little more cake. I’m pretty sure Nicola also told me that the actual wedding cakes would have more cake, but I’m confused now since their flyer does state their cakes are mostly mousse, so maybe I misunderstood her. My cake desires are more traditional, I guess; I really wasn’t digging this mousse stuff. Even though it was mostly mousse, it was still incredibly sweet. My mother and I had a hard time finishing off the desserts (felt bad wasting it), and Kelvin of course wouldn’t have more than a small taste of either. Quality and freshness for the samples were very good, and I can see other people liking this sort of cake (and willing to pay a premium for it); it just wasn’t for us.

After we finished the samples, there wasn’t really much more to ask Nicola, so our cake tasting was finished pretty early. This place was very pricey, and we didn’t like their cake, so Fleur de Cocoa won’t be an option for us.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): B-
Presentation (based off photos): A-
Taste: C+
Favorite flavors: None.
Price: Starts at $8 a slice. She forgot to write down the delivery fee to Cupertino on my cafe menu, but I believe it was $75.

New thing I learned today: “Fleur” is French for “flower”.

I ordered my wedding dress online… and I got it!

Judy — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:49:13 +0000

I picked it up from a UPS hub a few days ago, and it looks pretty good! And yes, I got it online.

I visited five bridal salons in my dress search, and even though I found a dress I liked at one of the salons, I ended up buying it online. I know it’s kind of a jerkhole thing to shop for dresses in person for service and not buy from them, but I was too tempted by the significantly cheaper price from buying online. I originally found my dress at Trudy’s Bridal, but Trudy’s has this strict no-price-matching-no-discount policy. So the dress was full retail at Trudy’s, and the only other store near me that carries the brand I was looking for (Rin’s Bridal) couldn’t find the dress model in their records to give me a quote. My brick & mortar choices were limited.

I looked at several online stores recommended on the boards at The Knot and contacted them through email. I found my dress 30-40% cheaper online. I went with the least expensive, which was Lee Phillips Bridal. The owner of the store, Stacey, was very quick, responsive, and friendly with emails. You won’t see many stores listing their prices upfront on a website; you have to email or call them. The bridal gown industry places a lot of restrictions on stores that carry their brands. By limiting the stores that sell their products and forbidding discounts, gown brands maintain a strong control on their gowns prices and perceived value, along with service quality. Some online stores are not authorized retailers that have a direct relationship with these strict brands, and they bypass these restrictions by being a middle man for other stores that are authorized retailers. I guess authorized retailers are willing to risk their relationships with certain brands through increased bulk of sales. Anyway, I think Lee Phillips Bridal operates something like this, as they’re not an authorized retailer of the brand I like. Because they do business this way, they won’t divulge brands they offer and prices on their website until you contact them. It seems kinda sketchy, but nothing illegal, based on what I’ve read online.

Even with Stacey’s great email communication, ordering online is pretty nerve-wracking. You have to do all your measurements yourself and hope you do it correctly and the size charts are accurate, pay for the entire total upfront, hear nothing about your important and expensive purchase for months, and cross your fingers that nothing is wrong with your dress when you get it, as your options are limited with an unauthorized online store. I took my chances based on previous Knottie experiences, and it worked out great. I ordered it March 21st, and I was quoted a delivery time of August 25th, so the dress came an entire month early. The order also came with a complimentary dress bag for storage. Thank goodness too; I don’t know how else I was going to fit that giant mass of lace and tulle into the closet.

I highly recommend Lee Phillips Bridal. The dress I got was authentic and at an awesome price. So far, everything looks good. I can get into the dress no problem. (My waist was the size-limiting factor, and it was borderline for the size I chose. I was little extra worried this month cuz of all the cake I’ve been eating…) It still needs a lot of alterations for height and bust, as expected. We’ll see if I find any issues later on, but it seems unlikely at this point.

The best part about wedding planning: CAKE TASTING! (pt.1)

Judy — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:32:16 +0000

I hate wedding planning, but I’m not going to lie… I’m going to try as many cake tastings as I possibly can. I loves me cakes. Wedding cake consultations are generally free of charge, and they should be if they want you to buy hundreds of dollars of cake from them. Kelvin’s not a fan of sweets, so he’s not loving this like I am. (He’s actually trying to keep me from going to more… I don’t know what his problem is.) We stuck to bakeries that were local (mainly South Bay) and were recommended by Yelp or wedding review sites. We still don’t have a design settled on, so these bakery gave us quotes with no particular design in mind, though I tried to ask about what sorts of designs and details in their albums would cost how much extra. Here are my personal impressions of the places we tried:

Bakery 1: Satura Cakes in Palo Alto
I scheduled an appointment with Satura Cakes through email, which was super easy since they are very good at responding to email. I’ve heard rave reviews of this place; my mother’s coworker insisted Satura had the best cakes for Asian tastes. The bakery is located in the middle of downtown Palo Alto, and it has cafe seating and sells drinks and individual desserts, as well as (of course) cakes. My mother, Kelvin, and I met with Anne (who also did most of the email correspondence) on a nice sunny Saturday afternoon.

We sat at a couple of the cafe tables inside. Anne had us look through binders of their previous work as she prepared the cake samples for us. Looking at their binder, they seemed to have decent presentation. Kelvin has pretty strict criteria for presentation (smoothness is very important to him), and he seemed okay with what he saw. Anne came back with a HUGE platter of desserts; apparently their cake tasting mostly consists of using their individual desserts, not sliced sheet cake samples. This being our first cake tasting, it was very intimidating. They even packed all the leftovers to take home! (If you taste here, you might want to consider bringing a couple friends.)

Anne had us taste the samples in a very specific order (from lightest to heaviest), which was an excellent idea. Their cakes were overall good, though not spectacular as I had hoped. Their specialty, strawberry shortcake, was very good, and it was very fresh. The other cakes varied in freshness, but Anne admitted some cakes may have dried out from sitting out as individual desserts. (The strawberry shortcake, she said, was freshly sliced.) The dryness was obvious in a couple of the cakes we tried, which was disappointing. I’m surprised they would serve it like this; what if no one had commented on the dryness, would the potential buyer even realize that the actual cake they get for their wedding would be better? Also, their heavy cakes were really, really heavy, which surprised me since I thought this bakery was catered towards Asian tastes. Their red velvet cake was much too sweet. (I can tell you from eating many Sugar Butter Flour red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting that red velvet doesn’t have to be insanely sweet.) The chocolate ones towards the end were basically brownies. I’m glad they force this order of tasting. There’s no way I would have enjoyed the strawberry shortcake as much if I had just eaten the chocolate cake. Not all their chocolate cakes are like that tho; we had a couple lighter chocolate pieces in the middle that were much better.

Anne was super nice the entire tasting, offering us drinks and open to questions. Not being the baker herself, Anne couldn’t give us size estimates without consulting the pastry chefs first, but she was able to give some estimates as to what certain design elements would cost. As with all the bakeries we tried, nothing is definite until we show them exactly what we want. Anne mentioned that their pastry chefs can emulate anything, so if we saw something we liked, we should send them a picture. Satura Cakes was also the most organized, giving us a folder with a sample contract plus some wedding planning tips on paper. (In fact, I’m still using the folder to hold all the other cake tasting info I got.) Anne said she’d email us with a quote as soon as she could, and indeed she did email us the next day. They offer a 5% discount when you book with them within a week of consultation.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): A
Presentation (based off photos): B
Taste: B+
Favorite flavors: Strawberry Shortcake, Chocolate Cake with Caramel Mocha Cream, and Green Tea Cake with Vanilla Bean Cream (the tea flavor is really light).
Price: Starts at $6 a slice, delivery fee to Cupertino is $50

Bakery 2: Margaret’s French Bakery
Margaret’s French Bakery is another highly recommended establishment on Yelp. Their blog (written by Margaret’s son) is a spectacular cake blog. They only do cakes by order, so their bakery is in the middle of some warehouse-y area near downtown Campbell. Since they were so close to where we worked, we came for a consultation during lunchtime on a Friday afternoon. Kelvin and I met with Margaret herself, who I contacted through email and she arranged an appointment with me over the phone.

The cake tasting takes place in their small office, since they don’t really have a storefront. Wedding cakes is clearly their business, as they have pamphlets for other wedding services in the area. As we went through the binder of pictures, Margaret brought out a platter with 8 teeny-tiny slices of cakes on it. (Because it was a pretty intimate setting and Margaret was there the whole time, I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures of the samples.) After Satura, I was kind of surprised at how small they were, but it was probably more what I was expecting if I hadn’t gone to Satura. And the cakes didn’t taste that great. I felt maybe the sample size might have affected the quality, as the pieces were kind of dry. (Kelvin described them as “gritty”.) She said the pieces were baked the day before, which kind of surprised me since they weren’t that soft. (Tip: Always ask about when the samples are made, and when the cake for your wedding day will be made. It’s typical for cakes to be made days before your wedding, especially if your cake has a complicated design.) I’m guessing perhaps they weren’t cut that day or the samples weren’t sealed away in the fridge well enough? I don’t know. Kelvin was pretty unresponsive, which was annoying. It’d be nice if he could make it less obvious in front of the owner his distaste. Even with the small sample size, we didn’t finish the samples. I usually can, but I think maybe I felt weird acting like a pig in front of Margaret. I asked her which flavor was her most popular, and she said everything on the platter was most popular, which I thought was kind of weird. Carrot cake? Seriously? (Admittedly, their carrot cake was pretty yummy and moist, even with the sample size.)

Margaret is directly involved in the cake-making, which makes it easy to ask her about approximate costs for certain design elements. I went through their binder and pointed out random stuff to ask about pricing. Pretty much everything cost extra (Tip: Did you know that non-circular cake shapes, like square, will often cost you extra? This was the case with most bakeries I spoke to.), except for small side frosting decorations like dots. Looking at their album and blog pictures, their cakes are absolutely immaculate. Gorgeous, gorgeous cakes, with even their butter cream cakes looking totally flawless. She gave us a copy of the quote she gave us, which was also the contract, along with a list of all the flavors they offer, including many we didn’t taste.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): B+
Presentation (based off photos): A+
Taste: C
Favorite flavors: I thought their Princess Cake and Strawberry Grand Marnier were decent. Kelvin only liked the carrot cake… which is too bad since he doesn’t really like carrot cake.
Price: Starts at $6.50 a slice, delivery fee to Cupertino is $50

Bakery 3: Cake Expressions
Cake Expressions also has some decent Yelp reviews, and they came highly recommended from the couple who had that crazy awesome Lego cake I mentioned about a while back. They also only do cake special orders, so no storefront with desserts. They’re located in some random building in another warehouse-y district, this time in East San Jose. The building is easy to miss, but they usually have a real estate-looking sign that says “Cakes” by the driveway. I made an appointment over the phone with them for a Saturday afternoon, and this appointment was bumped early at their request later on, tho the woman I met with, Robin, wasn’t aware that they had successfully made this change. My mom joined Kelvin and me for this trip.

Their tasting area is a small room that isn’t very well ventilated, so it was still warm even with the portable air conditioner running. There’s two tables with chairs, a bunch of binders with pictures of cakes, a wall of model cakes, and a large TV showing the same couple cutting cake, with footage rotating every whole minute. Robin had us look at binders as she prepared cakes, probably slicing them from sheet cakes. As we waited, the very nice grand cake master of Cake Expressions, Cero, was passing through the tasting room and introduced himself to us, which was cool. Robin came back out with a platter of decent sized samples (which looked huge after going to Margaret’s) and a “map” describing the cakes on plate. She didn’t care what order we ate it, so we just went at it. And it was hella good. All the cakes were fluffy and moist, and none of the flavors were heavy. I love, LOVE their Chocolate Raspberry Truffle cake, which is a dense chocolate cake with raspberry puree in it, giving it an interesting texture. Very chocolately, but just right on the sweetness. Overall, we loved all the samples; the whole thing was immediately gobbled up. They’re also the only place to offer a mousse outer frosting, which was different. I didn’t really get a good idea of the difference between the mousse and buttercream because I was so enthralled by the cake, but I happened to like all the mousse covered cakes better, so I’m guessing maybe it’s not as sweet. Cake Expressions also had samples of fondant, the super thick waxy frosting that most complicated cake designs use (usually costs $1.00 per slice extra at most bakeries), so we got to taste fondant for the first time. (It’s gross. It’s basically sugar wax. If we get fondant, make sure to peel it off the cake before you eat it.) Kudos to Cake Expressions for thinking to do that.

I asked Robin when the cakes were made, and she gave me some sort of vague answer like “they were made this week”. This leads me to think that the cakes were a few days old, which is amazing since they taste so fresh. But then I thought, maybe Robin is tricking me into thinking the samples are old, leading me to think their cakes last a while when actually the sample were made that day. Stupid Robin and her mind games! Anyway, she said they usually make their cakes a few days before: one day to make the cake, one day to fill the cake, and how ever many days it takes to frost and decorate it. She confirmed the cake on the day of the wedding would have same texture.

I went through some designs we liked in the binder and got some estimates to what things cost. They have an incredibly reasonable starting price at $3.99 a slice, but just about everything you can think of is extra. Specialty cake flavors (like the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle) and specialty cake fillings (fresh fruit) cost extra, as is using mousse instead of buttercream. I think this was the only bakery where some flavors of cake cost more than others. Design elements cost extra, of course, but generally they seemed to cost less than Margaret’s. Overall, the cost was still lower than the other places we’ve visited, which was great since we actually like their cake. Also, Cero seems to be excellent at making complicated designs, so if you’re design is crazy, Cake Expressions is probably a good option. Kelvin, however, wasn’t fond of their presentation; he didn’t feel any of the cakes he saw were smooth enough. Despite this, he agreed he liked Cake Expressions best so far, as taste is the most important factor in the end. They also have very customizable flavors. One filling they have listed is Chocolate Mint Cookies & Cream, which made Kelvin perk up since he loves mint chocolate stuff, but then he realized it had Oreo, which he doesn’t like. Robin saw this and made sure to mention they could put any kind of candy in the Oreo’s stead, which I thought was a great idea… except I don’t want to make our entire wedding party eat mint chocolate stuff. (I know my mom definitely hates mint.) Still, the fact the option is there is really nice.

Similar to Margaret’s, Robin gave us a quote/contract sheet along with a list of flavors. The list separates regular flavors from specialty, so you know what flavors will cost you more. It also mentions which flavors of filling they recommend with each cake type. Very informative. I wish we had gotten the cake map though, so I could remember what I ate. Robin was friendly and open to questions the entire time, which made the cake tasting very pleasant. We even got a personal recommendation for the place while we were waiting. A customer waiting for her cake was in the tasting room the entire time, and she raved about them. People were also walking in and out, picking up special occasion cakes, so business was okay with them. This place was definitely the front-runner in our cake search after we tasted them. My mom is definitely one “with Asian taste”, and she really liked this place, after being surprisingly disappointed with Satura.

Service and organization (at tasting and through communication): A-
Presentation (based off photos): B
Taste: A
Favorite flavors: Chocolate Raspberry Truffle, definitely. The regular White cake and Red Velvet cake were favorites, too. (I didn’t like their cream cheese frosting tho. Too sweet.) Kelvin liked the Tiramisu, but for some reason I really didn’t like it here, even tho I generally like Tiramisu.
Price: Starts at $3.99 a slice, delivery fee to Cupertino is $45

More cake tasting to come…

New thing I learned today: Fondant really is just sugar and water.

I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription is more Dr. Mario (Online Rx)

Judy — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:59:41 +0000

I bought Dr. Mario Online Rx at the end of the May, right when it came out on WiiWare. It’s my first (and currently only) WiiWare game and probably my last download for a while until Nintendo comes up with a decent storage solution. (My Wii truly is full. I can’t even download the update for Dr. Mario Online Rx, whatever it does.) I paid 1000 Wii Points for it, which is equivalent to $10. Considering how simple the game is and how little it’s changed over the years, I’d prefer cheaper. However, considering the amount of time I’ve spent playing this game the last few weeks, I’d have to say I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth already.

Kelvin playing some guy named Moose.

If you don’t know what Dr. Mario is or have never played it, well, it’s simple. REALLY simple. Basically, there’s three colors of viruses (blocks) all over your screen, and you get rid of them by lining up blocks of four of the same color with dropped pills (combos of two colored blocks). The goal is to get rid of all the viruses. So yeah, simple. This game is so simple it appeals to everybody, even mommies. (I didn’t have Dr. Mario as a kid, so my mom preferred Tetris. Kelvin’s mom liked Dr. Mario tho.) When you’re playing against opponents to be the first to remove your viruses, multiple lines removed will lead to random blocks dropped on your opponents, often times messing up their block setups and screwing up their flow by making them wait for blocks to fall.

A couple other gameplay modes have been added to the game. “Classic” mode is where you aim to get rid of all the viruses on your screen, while the new “Flash” has you aiming for 3 specific viruses amidst other viruses. In single player, you can play for high score, or you can play against the computer in Versus. The computer is surprisingly good… or maybe I just surprisingly suck. I thought I was okay at Dr. Mario, but the computer kicked my ass on friggin’ Normal! I don’t even want to talk about Hard.

They’ve also added a new spin on the Dr. Mario game called Virus Blasters. Jessica tells me this game is already available in the DS game Brain Age 2. This is where there is one screen of viruses, and any player with a Wiimote grabs a falling pill by pointing their Wiimote and dragging down the pill. One thing that’s slightly different (outside of the control scheme) is that, when only half of a pill attaches to something, you can drag the leftover half elsewhere. Usually if the pill falls on something, the whole pill is stuck. Virus Busters is interesting in that multiple players share the same screen, and up to 4 players can play together, which makes it a viable party game. I don’t know how fun it is with 4 people since I haven’t tried it; it’s not bad with two, but I’m still partial to Classic mode.

Me and some buddies chasing some viruses in Virus Buster

In fact, most of the time I play this game, it’s against Kelvin in versus. We’re not too far apart in skill level, so it’s not unbalanced towards one person. Even if it was, there’s options to change the number of viruses and speed of the pills falling for each player, so you can assign handicaps. Actually, messing with these options lead to radically different games. Maxing out the viruses leaves a tiny empty space at the top, allowing little room for error, making it a race to do the first combo to mess up what little space your opponent has left and likely eliminate them from the getgo. Putting the least amount of viruses leaves you with a handful of viruses in a lot of empty space, making it an all out speed contest to eliminate the viruses, with combos hurting your opponent through falling time. The real difficulty changes with the speed option, as time to rotate your pill and decide where to place them is crucial. The virus level seems more to make the game longer or shorter. Right now, Kelvin and I are enjoying the max-out on virii with speed on slow setting.

This match was really close. Of course, I messed up placing the last yellow-blue
pill. Tho Kelvin had just messed up before I messed that up. But as you can tell,
my mess-up from way earlier really jacked me to the end.

If you don’t have roommates, family, or a significant other living with you to be your Dr. Mario rival, it’s cool. The developers have made the (obvious) addition of online play. Of course, this is Nintendo we’re talking about, so you’ve got lame-o friend codes, and you can’t customize the things you say or pick strangers to play with. Nintendo does all the player matching for you, and there’s a set list of 8 phrases you can in between matches. I don’t mind this too much, as the idea of playing with complete strangers intimidates me, so their limited speech kind of makes me feel better when they kick my ass. (I’m telling you, there’s some Dr. Mario fiends on there. And I’m sure it comes as a surprise to no one that the top ranked players are all Japanese.) You can’t customize the game settings for random online play, either. You can play with your friends with friend codes, but I haven’t had a chance to try this out, as neither of my two Dr. Mario friends are ever online at the same time as me. (It’s kinda annoying how their names won’t show up until they’re on the same time as you, so my list is currently just a list of numbers.) The game also keeps track of some ranking score thing, but I’m indifferent to it. Unlike local battles, the game keeps track of your win-loss record overall, along with the score of the current opponent you’re fighting. (I really wish they had this for local.) I feel that multiplayer is the real fun of Dr. Mario, so online play was definitely a necessary addition.

In depth conversation on Dr. Mario.

That said, why don’t they have 4-player Dr. Mario?!? This omission really pieves me, as 4-player multiplayer was available in the N64/Gamecube versions of Dr. Mario. Do you know how many hours I spent playing Dr. Mario with Rodney and Jamie in college? A lot! It was hella fun! Now I spend $10 for a new spiffy version of the game that is minus a feature? Lame! I’m not asking for 4-player online, just local. It’s a great party game. I hope one day there will be an update to put this feature back in. Also, you can’t play Virus Busters online, which I thought was strange since it does have local 4-player.

I have no friends :(

I really dig the new, clean look of the game. The old versions of Dr. Mario have always been pretty dark, while in Online Rx everything is very white and sterile looking, much like anything else Wii-related. In single player you are still Dr. Mario tossing pills; in multiplayer you play your Mii. Miis show up chasing viruses in Virus Busters, and in single player Dr. Mario they jump around and cheer for you when you win. I know some people aren’t fans of Miis, but I love them. Anything integrating Miis is always a plus for me.

(These images were yoinked from IGN.)

On NES

On N64

On Wii

Anyway, I dig this new Dr. Mario. I haven’t played anything else on WiiWare, but I’m willing to go out there and say this is the best thing offered on WiiWare at the moment. If you’re not willing to spend the $10, you can download a demo that only allows online play with friends for free. It’s available through the Nintendo Channel on the Wii, or you can get a friend who owns the game to send you the demo.

Oh yeah, and be my Dr. Mario friend please. 5652+7731+9520

(If I ever figure it out, the following summary will go in a spiffy little box.)

In a nutshell: Dr. Mario has a new coat and goes online.

The good: Dr. Mario will always be good. ALWAYS. Even then, three different modes, handicap options, and online versus provide an incredible variety of play. Clean looking graphics, Miis in doctor’s coats look super-cute.

The bad: No 4-player for Dr. Mario! WHY? No online for Virus Busters, and zero options for online play with strangers.

8.7 outta 10

New thing I learned today: “Viruses” is the proper way of spelling the plural of “virus”. “Virii” was made up teh interwebz.

I originally wrote “virii” all over this review, thinking it was an actual word. I’m stupid. I corrected myself, but I left one or two in for good measure :P